The Girl at Midnight - Melissa Grey

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey
Series: The Girl at Midnight #1
Published on April 28, 2015 by Delacorte Press
[This book was given to me by the Publisher but this in no way affected my opinion.]

For readers of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones and Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, The Girl at Midnight is the story of a modern girl caught in an ancient war.

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it's time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, but if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

I started this book with very few expectations, I already lost the count of books comparing themselves to "City of Bones" (for those who don't know TMI is one of my favorite series) and end up being disappointed but on this case I was gladly surprised that "The Girl at Midnight" did lived up to it's praise and also created a new space for itself. Let's talk about the comparisons, I did not read "Shadow and Bone" so can't testify for this book but I found some elements of this book really similar with "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" (which isn't on the summary but still), first Echo starts being adopted by one of the Avicen (people with feathers for hair) and runs errands for them and create portals to go from our world to the Avicen world, this reminded me a lot of Karou and them *something* at the end happened that bothered me by how close it was with DoSaB - like, I already knew what was gonna happen because I had read the other book and this is a little too close for my taste, also some of the amazingness of the ending was lost with that ending.

But on the other side I loved the similar parts of "The Girl at Midnight" with "City of Bones", for me, the thing that makes these two close are their characters a lot of them and their personalities reminded me of characters from the other series and I absolutely loved the characters on this one, and loved even more their interactions. Echo is trying to save the world she loves while not knowing what she needs to do, but still fighting with all her strength, Caius is also trying to save his world and these two end up doing a unthinkably alliance to survive and they do end up on a romance. At first I didn't enjoyed because Echo has already a boyfriend but seems pretty quickly to forget him once she starts to knowing Caius, so I was kind of happy (because yes for less melodrama) but also weirded out that she never thought about her boyfriend (or ex I guess?) but they won me over along the book mostly because there wasn't instalove, also the ending left a open page for their relationship on the next book that could led to a lot of drama and I just don't want that to happen.

So for me the best and most memorable characters were the secondary ones, specially the participants of the gay couple (is that a spoiler if I say their names? Idk) and had such funny scenes and a great banter together, also the final scene of them was just *swoon* is fair to say that I was head over heels for them (also please more scenes with them on the rest of the series). But not only their interactions were fun to read, all the group scenes were funny and a lot of those made me laugh out loud - and this was what made this book a win for me, I completely lost myself reading it and would always come back because I wanted more and more of this characters.

I super recommend this book to lovers of fantasy and fans of The Mortal Instruments series.

Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning

Today I'm here to another series review, this time around for the first two books on the Fever series, for those who don't know (where have you been??) this is an adult urban fantasy series super popular amoung all my GR friends and I finally decided to try. The summary from the first book: "MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae….
As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands…. "

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Series: Fever #1

Published by Delacorte Press on October 31, 2006 

I was really bummed by this book, after all the rave I had read about this series I was expecting to be wooed but this book felt really flat. The main problem I had with it was the fact that it was really, really, really slow, it took forever for the actual urban fantasy elements start to play in and since we see everything through Mac's eyes we don't get to know that much about the faery mythology. Mac also can be kind of annoying, she is a very unique main character meaning that she is much more girly (on the stereotypical sense of liking pink, and hells, and make up and girly stuff) and sometimes I just wanted to shake her to stop describing her outfits and get shit done. 

Still, I found it interesting, I haven't read much books about fae and despite being a slow read it was easy to read quickly. And the ending kind of left me no choice besides picking up the next book right away.

Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning

Series: Fever #2

Published by Delacorte Press on October 16, 2007

Okay, whoa, this book was like one of those fast cars that Mac loves so much, because it went from 0 to 100 km/h in like 2 seconds (is that obvious that not even reading this book I get a thing about cars?). If Darkfever was to slow, Bloodfever more than compensated, it had one plot point after the other, a lot of action-y things and when it ended I was like "what no, this can't be the last page it has to have more" because Moning is the Queen of making cliffhangers that will make the fans cry bloody tears (the first book kind of had one too). 

BUT, there was something still missing for me. I like Mac much more on this book but I still feel like we have one too many descriptions about her clothes, I did felt like her grief for her sister was a bigger part on this one and she is finally realising that she is on a dangerous situation and is toughing up. Barrons on the other hand does nothing for me (sorry, not sorry), he just doesn't appeal to me, he isn't as terrible as I thought he would be but does some things that are  pretty hard to look over. On the fae mythology we do get more answers and also much more questions, I'm liking the way things are shaping up - I did picked up the third book right away when I finished this one, but put it down after a while, still didn't care enough about the characters to continue BUT I do have curiosity about this world and how things will turn out at the end (of the "original" part at least!). Let's see how that will go on the future, recommended to fans of adult urban fantasy and lovers of fae novels - if this isn't your jam I don't really recommend this series as a starting point. 

For Real - Alison Cherry

For Real by Alison Cherry 
Published by Delacorte Press on December 9, 2014 
Pages: 304
Genres: Contemporary, Reality show, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley

Amazon • The Book Depository • Goodreads 

From Alison Cherry, author of 

Red, a novel PW declares “sparkles with wit,” comes a terrific new book about two sisters and one big question: how do you know who’s for real?

No parents. No limits. No clue what they’re in for.

Shy, cautious Claire has always been in her confident older sister’s shadow. While Miranda’s life is jam-packed with exciting people and whirlwind adventures, Claire gets her thrills vicariously by watching people live large on reality television.

When Miranda discovers her boyfriend, Samir, cheating on her just after her college graduation, it’s Claire who comes up with the perfect plan. They’ll outshine Miranda’s fame-obsessed ex while having an amazing summer by competing on Around the World, a race around the globe for a million bucks. Revenge + sisterly bonding = awesome. 

But the show has a twist, and Claire is stunned to find herself in the middle of a reality-show romance that may be just for the cameras. This summer could end up being the highlight of her life . . . or an epic fail forever captured on film. In a world where drama is currency and manipulation is standard, how can you tell what’s for real?

Despite the enormous quantity of reality tv that are throw on us daily I find interesting that "For Real" is the first book that I read about this theme - and like what it's show on tv, this book delivers a quickly, mindless read that will make you entertained for hours without noticing it!

Claire our main character stars the book pretty naive and at some points she made just blank stare at the pages of my e-reader because of some things she was thinking/doing, through the entire book she is trying to pass as a mature person but the way she acts (keeping her feelings from her sister & not having an honest conversation with her) is really childish. Honestly the entire relationship between Claire and Miranda is very childish, I get the older sister wanting to protect the younger one but oh boy did Miranda pissed me off so many times, they both should have just sat down and talked through their problems. We sorta of do have an happy ending for their relationship but I wasn't sold on that - they had major problems and never worked on them. 

Other relationship that leaved me unsatisfied was Claire and Will's. Like I said above Claire is pretty naive from the start until almost the end of the book but there are times that I just rolled my eyes so much because of the level of immaturity from her character, it was like she needed to pass through the same things over and over with her sister and her crush to finally get the memo  - let's just say I was never on board for this ship and am glad for that. 

Overall this book was quickly, at some points even laugh out loud funny but the impressions will not last long enough, just like last season of whatever reality show you watch. 

Recommended to: fans of reality tv, fans of contemporary books with trips on it (there are lots of trips on this one, did I mentioned it?), fans of coming of age stories.